The list of those who had passed the Preliminary Debate had been posted.
Students from the various academies crowded around the enormous noticeboard, their voices rising in a constant clamor.
Some stood on tiptoe, desperately trying to see over the crowd. Others had already found their names and were cheering with delight, while still others squeezed out of the crowd with their heads hanging low.
Although this was only the first stage, the ruthless selection process had already begun to show its power.
More than half the students from ordinary magic academies had been eliminated in this round, reduced to mere also-rans in this grand event.
For them, taking part in the Hundred-Academy Exchange Meeting was already an honor in itself. But when they saw that their names were absent from the list, they still found it hard to hide their disappointment.
Aside from a handful who had gotten in through connections, most students from the five elite magic academies had passed the Preliminary Debate without difficulty. That result was only to be expected.
Yet when they looked at the very top of the list, they found something they had never anticipated-a single name stood prominently in first place:
Greg Sass.
For students from the four elite magic academies other than Glory Kail, it was not that they could not accept a dark horse suddenly appearing at the Exchange Meeting. But wasn't this horse a little too dark?
"Wait, who's Greg?"
"Have any of you heard of him before?"
"Where did he even come from?"
Before this, the name had been virtually unknown among the top students, and none of them had heard of any remarkable achievements to his credit.
Yet this very person had outperformed everyone in the Preliminary Debate and claimed the top spot.
What surprised them even